The First Lady of the United States of America, Melania Trump could by all means possible be a nice person but by the mere virtue of being married to one of the world’s most controversial and widely unpopular leaders, President Donald Trump, it looks like the way people view her has a lot to do with her association with Trump.
In the meantime, while the former First Lady Michelle Obama is breaking book sale records, a recent poll has now revealed that Melania Trump’s favorable rating has fallen by double-digits, from 54% in October to 43% in just two months.
Mrs. Trump has for most of 2018 maintained positive polling numbers unlike her husband, who has steadily maintained a favourable rating of about 40%.
So just when did Mrs. Trump become unpopular?
Melania Trump’s popularity peaked in early May of this year at 57%, following her first official State Dinner in late April, a public coming-out of sorts for the extremely private First Lady.
It was also on the heels of Trump’s solo trip to Houston, Texas, to attend the funeral of former first lady Barbara Bush, where she posed, smiling, for a photograph with living former presidents and first ladies, many of whom have icy relationships with her husband.
After the announcement of her “Be Best” initiative and her subsequent hospitalization for a kidney procedure, which kept her out of the public eye for almost three weeks, Melania maintained strong favourable ratings at 51%.
However, these new numbers reflect that Mrs. Trump still maintains her strongest support from older, white, male Republicans and conservatives while her biggest critics are women, mainly younger and those who are college-educated.
The First Lady has lost five points among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 13 points among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. However, the biggest decrease for Melania Trump is among liberals and white college-graduates which is down 17 percentage points each.
Melania Trump has recently been more visible, often appearing side-by-side with the President at events and has also been more vocal about policy issues. However, what might have contributed to her unpopularity was an interview she did in October with ABC News in Kenya, where she said that women who accuse men of sexual misconduct should have “hard evidence.”
The poll was conducted for CNN via telephone by SSRS, an independent research company and interviews were conducted from December 6-9 among a sample of 1,015 respondents.
With the way her husband seems to be running the White House, Melania’s popularity could be at 5% by the time his term in office is done.